What No Bastard Can Pull Asunder
by Foul Fountain of Flies
Summary: In her struggle to forget Kaien, she realized that the only way out is to remember. RukiaXKaien. One shot.


**What No Bastard Can Pull Asunder**

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach and its characters. Maybe I'll buy the rights from Kubo one of these days but damned if I can make anything out of it. Haha.

Warning: this has no plot whatsoever. I don't really depend on plotlines when I write stories, because when it comes down it, I have no interesting ideas to offer. I can't guarantee either if there's anything going for this shit; all I know is that, my intentions for writing this piece do not involve any desire to give the pair a good ending. Their bit was pretty sad (but beautiful too, hands down and all) in the first place, so why change that, right? On a final note, this doesn't make use of the usual chronological devise you find in short stories. It's introspective, which would explain the shift of time frames in places. That is all.

Summary: In her struggle to forget Kaien, she realized that the only way out is to remember. RukiaXKaien. One shot.

* * *

_It was this endless dance I was willing to follow you on when all this was over._

That night was like the type of stories mothers tell their children to scare them to sleep. It wasn't supposed to be told in the first place, especially to good children who always do what they're told. Instead of plugging her ears with both her forefingers, she found herself absorbing each of the mother's words, letting it terrify her if only to send herself a little bit closer to sleep, to peace. The night covered her like the thin film of placenta; it left her no breathing space inside and gave her very little room for movements. Out there in reality, she was sure the world was much, much kinder. If only she could reach her hand out and let someone pull her out of this well, perhaps things would go back the way they were. But she wasn't sure herself if that's what she really wanted.

"Captain… is it a good idea to let Rukia-dono handle her post now? Shouldn't we give her more time?" she heard their fourth seat pleading with Captain Ukitake. She was sure she meant well, though she was almost certain those words were meant to target her incapacity as well.

"Time is of the essence. If we don't let her do her job now, when are we supposed to?" Ukitake muttered quietly. His voice was gentle. More than that, he sounded so right.

She stretched up to touch the seat mattress beside her. No longer occupied by Shiba Kaien, its soft surface seemed to emit nothing but coldness. Further still, she could see what used to be his wife's seat mattress. Neither of these two would ever grace her world again, not one fleeting reflection of their smiles would ever appear before her again, not after their deaths as shinigamis. In the darkness, she dared utter the word she'd been so frightened to hear all this time. "Murderer". How could she grapple with the notion of being a murderer from now on?

* * *

"What comes after the middle ring?" Kaien had asked her once during lunch time. He had crossed his legs after a manner on the floor; if a stranger had mistaken him for the master of the house, he was extremely justified to have done so.

"What… do you mean?"

"Middle Ring. In Dante's Inferno, there are seven layers making up the entire sphere of hell. In the last circle, souls are tortured wickedly for good centuries. If you begin from the core, the punishment pretty much loosens up as you go along; if you take the reverse, that's when it gets interesting. So I'm thinking, what form of torture could be fit for those fuckers I'm taking on next?"

"You mean the Hollows?"

"That's about it, Rukia. Wow, you're actually following on."

"I guess it varies depending on their levels."

"Well, you snatch the words right off my mouth. I'm glad to know there's a member of this division whose brain actually functions."

"But vice-captain, how can you be sure that these layers of hell you're talking about are real? I mean, you just got the idea from a book, right?"

"They are real. They have to be. It's my job to kick Hollow ass down to the very core of hell. You'll see." He winked at her then and his conviction made her wince on the spot. Apart from everything, there was just so much in him that deserved admiration that Rukia didn't know where to begin searching. If he could only see through her, he'd find a loving, gentle heart looking for its worthy master, for him.

The following day, Captain Ukitake broke the news of Kaien's wife's death. The details he provided weren't very clear but much was established as to the identity of her and her team's killer. Alongside this observation, it was hard to tell whether he was covering up certain grotesque facts involving the affair. As a captain, Ukitake knew quite well just how to handle issues with epic sensitivity, and this time it was no different. Then, perhaps it was with silence, or maybe with a deafening groan, that Kaien received the news. Ukitake was hardly finished with his report when something in the atmosphere broke and gave way to this upheaval. This kind of response, Rukia remarked as she stood very still behind her vice-captain, easily indicated a crippling despair. One that recognized no bounds. In the subsequent moments, she watched Kaien frantically pace back and forth, from one corner to the next, his fists clenching and unclenching, his desperation utterly outdoing his composure. He finally stormed out of the room, vowing no man, living or dead, would stop him from what he was bound to do next.

In her heart of hearts, Rukia knew that sanity had left Kaien before he even forwarded the request to slay the monster that killed his wife. What she failed to see is that, it was also the last time she'd feel any human warmth in him.

* * *

The night outside gave every hint of cruelty to the unsheltered. The chill wind it sent through the marrow was very characteristic of its song: Silence. Rukia closed her eyes against the dark, as if to shield them from danger, whereas the only thing that really posed any danger to her in times like this was her thoughts. Her thoughts of him. On meeting him the first time, she saw the very man she wanted to spend eternity with. The moment was so supreme, so promising, that afterward her mind refused to lay itself to rest. She spent the whole of that night thinking of him, conjuring pictures in her head where she and the honored vice-captain fought side by side on a battlefield that reassured them of nothing but their victory. In those days, this was enough. For her, there was no greater glory than to be counted under Shiba Kaien's command. And to dream about him.

While those sleepless nights were prized and painless to some extent, the ones after his death were just the reverse. Thus, in this autumn evening, Rukia caught herself remembering happy and lonely days alike, and in their fusion she felt the burdening, widening expanse of pain inside her. She felt loneliness, solitude, and her dreams shattering all at once; she felt them so much that she could almost hear them tearing her apart.

And if she could only have the power to break through the laws of the universe, dissolve the barriers of dimensions, at whatever expense, she would bring him back right here beside her where he was meant to be, where he always was.

* * *

"It's not my job to honor your decision this rashly, but because _that_ happened, you are free to do what you will. Permission granted." Ukitake told Kaien gravely. Rukia could not believe her ears.

In volunteering himself for this suicide mission, redemption was very from his thoughts. His blood hungered for blood, his flesh for flesh, his soul for a murderer's soul. At that moment, there was nothing to outride his desire for revenge. He meant to rip the monster that killed his wife in pieces, to powder those pieces as the blood drained out, and to scatter them in the air like dust. But from where Rukia and Ukitake stood, as they watched the scene unfold with increasing grimness, they knew that it was a long lost fight. Fate had sealed Shiba Kaien's life in an instant: He had to die right there, and had his body defiled and devoured by the creature he so wanted to destroy. Ukitake would later argue that at least, Kaien had kept his pride intact. It was something that Rukia would never be able to grasp.

In the drama that ensued, she would feel the last thud of his heart against hers. Her heart, for its part, would stop beating for a spell in an attempt to absorb the reality of his final breaths. She would hear his voice apologizing for the pain he caused her, not knowing that those exact words would cause her so much disgust toward herself long afterward. Unable to move, she would let him wrap his arms around her for the last time, let him draw her body closer to his as if to take the little heat left in her, and finally let him die in her arms. For her, that was the hardest part of all.

* * *

The night outside grew bigger to swallow the world. Like it ever was, Kuchiki Rukia lay awake in her room. She wondered where in Paradise Kaien was now: if he was reunited with his wife, if he had already found peace and if he did, how long had it been, exactly? Would he remember the little girl whom he thanked as she thrust the blade unto his human heart so that he could die as a human being?

It had been more than three decades since he passed into the other world. The answers to her questions remained muddled, if not entirely just an illusion. She wondered, in her labors, if Shiba Kaien had ever looked at her as a woman. In the number of times they spent together, during spare time and those little breaks in between holding their posts, there were many times when he had looked at her in a way that made her avert his gaze and create tension in the air. That much was given. At those instances he was quick to change the atmosphere and smooth things back to normal, but at the end of the day it only left her so much to ruminate on. Whether or not he, too, spent thoughts on these events was pretty much anyone's guess as Rukia's.

Her heart insisted that she was an important friend to him, someone he could share private jokes with and laugh with while nobody else around them would be able to relate. Her mind told her that she was a comrade he could rely on, an obedient fellow soldier who would stand and die by his side for honor. And only in her most unguarded moments, during those very rare times when she was able to sleep deeply, that she could truly feel that Shiba Kaien had really loved her as a woman.

This was the only thought she wanted to preserve in her mind. She believed in its power, and if she could only bring herself closer to this belief, she knew she would finally gain the peace she needed in order to leave all these behind. Only this thought held the key. That much she was sure of.

END


End file.
